I was wondering if anyone has herd of anywhere that has came up with manual locking hubs or any other solution to the vacuum hubs on the 2004 and newer 4x4 f150s

 

As far as I know, no one makes them. Also that would require a whole different set up on the front to have the larger hubs sticking through. Even replacing wheels.

 

Warn is the company that I believe has the patent on the IWE. They might be able to better answer the question. As I understand the system it works the same way a manual lock up would work but it uses vacuum to slip the lock up collar off the splines from behind the Hub. I am sure a crafty individual could draw up some plans to convert to manual lockup in front of the Hub. But why would you want to have to manually lock the hubs? Driving down the road things get nasty you would have to pull over and lock the hubs. As it is now all you need do is pull the lever or turn the dial and pray the |!"/$%?&* IWE works as it was designed.

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If your serious about this issue then I would suggest as a simple and beneficial alternative, putting an Eton E-locker in your front diff like I did. This gives you the option to lock the front end if you need to and as a side benefit (FYI this part I didn’t realize until after I put it in) if one of your IWE’s doesn’t engage you can still have one locked drive wheel available. If you have an open front diff and one IWE goes out you have no FWD.